Detention and Arrest of Fr. Stan Swamy in India

Civil rights organisations deplored the arrest of 83-year-old tribal rights activist

PUCL Condemns the Detention and Arrest of Fr. Stan Swamy in Bhima Koregaon Case in India

People's Union For Civil Liberties

https://countercurrents.org/2020/10/pucl-condemns-the-detention-and-arrest-of-fr-stan-swamy-in-bhima-koregaon-case/

October 8 2020

PUCL is shocked by and condemns the detention and arrest by NIA police team of 83 year old Fr. Stan Swamy from his residence in Bagaicha, Ranchi to take him to Mumbai to be remanded in the Bhima Koregaon (BK) case for allegedly being part of the larger conspiracy to cause unrest.

The inhuman and insincere act of the NIA authorities in arresting Fr. Stan stands out for its sheer vindictiveness for Fr. Stan fully cooperated with the Investigating officers of the NIA when they questioned him in the Jesuit Residence in Bagaicha for over 15 hours, on July 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th and 6th August.

Despite his advanced age and other age related ailments, Fr. Stan patiently answered all queries put to him. It should be noted that Fr. Stan’s residence was raided on 28th August, 2018 by the Pune Police then in charge of the BK case and his laptop, tablet, camera etc were seized.

PUCL states that the arrest of Fr. Stan by the NIA is malicious and spiteful as Fr. Stan has consistently denied any link with extremist leftist forces or Maoists. He had also clearly told the NIA that some so called extracts allegedly taken from his computer shown to him by the NIA were fake and fabricated and that he disowned them.

What also exposes the NIA action as motivated is revealed by the fact that in October, 2018, the police told the Bombay HC that Fr. Stan was only a suspect and not an accused. Thereafter, for 6 weeks after he was questioned the NIA kept quiet. Now as the 6 month period for completing investigation after the arrest of Gautam Navalakha and Anand Teltumbde on 14th April, 2020 is approaching, the NIA wants to arrest Fr. Stan Swamy and possibly other activists under the completely fabricated and non-existent conspiracy of Bhima Koregaon case.

PUCL would like to point out that the true reason for NI arresting Fr. Stan Swamy today is because he had dared to expose the large scale abuse of anti-terror and sedition laws by the previous BJP-led Jharkhand government. Thousands of Adivasis were falsely implicated and arrested for exercising their fundamental right of protest in the Pathalgadi movement and kept in prison without hearing.

Fr. Stan’s meticulous documentation of the untold suffering experienced by Adivasi youth, hundreds of whom were imprisoned for no offence at all, earned the ire of the police and the State which launched a witch hunt against Fr. Stan and some others in the human rights movement in Jharkhand. The data analysis of thousands of adivasis arbitrarily arrested by the police was also put in an affidavit in a PIL filed before the Jharkhand High Court which upset the Government.

Fr. Stan has always professed his commitment to the Constitution of India and peaceful means of expressing dissent while questioning abuse of power by state executive and police. Through the arrest of Fr. Stan, the NIA is yet again sending a message to the rest of the human rights community that there is no level to which they will not stoop to silence and crush dissent.

PUCL demands that the NIA immediately release Fr. Stan Swamy and refrain from carrying out these arbitrary and motivated arrests of innocent law abiding citizens.

Mr. Ravi Kiran Jain, President, PUCL
Dr. V. Suresh, General Secretary, PUCL

‘Stan Swamy’s arrest a violation of human rights’, say civil rights activists

Satyasundar Barik

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/stan-swamys-arrest-a-violation-of-human-rights-say-civil-rights-activists/article32817710.ece

October 10, 2020

Civil rights activists and organisations on Friday condemned the arrest of Stan Swamy, 83-year-old tribal rights activist, by the National Investigation Agency in the Bhima Koregaon case.

Mr. Swamy, arrested on Thursday from his Ranchi house, was sent to judicial custody till October 23.

Terming the arrest a gross violation of human rights and democratic norms, the activists said, “Mr. Swamy has worked for Adivasi rights since decades in Jharkhand.”

“The inhuman act of the NIA authorities in arresting Mr. Swamy stands out for its sheer vindictiveness. He fully cooperated with the investigating officers when they questioned him for over 15 hours [on 27, 30 July and 6 August],” they said in a statement.

The activists pointed out that Mr. Swamy had consistently denied any link with extremist leftist forces or Maoists.

“He had also clearly told the NIA that some so-called extracts allegedly taken from his computer shown to him by the NIA were fake and fabricated and that he disowned them,” says the statement.

“Among other issues, he works on displacement, corporate loot of resources, the condition of undertrials and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act. Mr. Swamy has been a vocal critic of the BJP government’s attempts to amend land laws and the land acquisition Act in Jharkhand, and a strong advocate of the Forest Rights Act, PESA and related laws,” it says.

“We firmly believe that the Bhima-Koregaon case is baseless,” the activists said in the statement.

They appealed to Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who had earlier opposed Mr. Swamy’s arrest, to resist the arrest this time too. Mr. Soren should demand the immediate release of Mr. Swamy and closure of the case, said Bharat Bhushan Choudhary of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha.

The Indomitable Spirit of Father Stan Swamy

Stan Swamy and the adivasis he supports in an impossible battle for their own ancestral lands are pawns pitted against mammoth mining companies. Falsely branding activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn to enable vested interests to finish them off.

Mari Marcel Thekaekara

https://thewire.in/rights/the-indomitable-spirit-of-father-stan-swamy

10/Oct/2020

“No, it’s not possible,” were my first thoughts when I heard that Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Jesuit priest and activist had been arrested – for the second time. His crime? He defended the rights of adivasis being exploited in their homeland Jharkhand.

Father Swamy has been accused of having links to a Maoist plot connected to the Bhima Koregaon case and was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on Thursday night. The rights activist is one of the gentlest and kindest men I have ever met. So the entire premise – for anyone who knows him – is entirely ludicrous. Funny even, if it were not so tragic. He has Parkinson’s disease. His hand shakes when he raises a cup of tea to his lips. He speaks so softly, you have to strain to hear him.

He assures his interrogators that he has no connection with Maoists. He believes in peaceful, non-violent protest. I believe him. Because I know that his integrity is above reproach.

I heard of Father Stan Swamy in the early seventies, because he was among the first people I knew who advocated living with the adivasi community in Jharkhand to understand their lives and their problems; to help find solutions and a way forward. I went there in the early seventies while still in college to write a story for our student magazine.

On a more personal note, Stan Swamy, introduced my husband, also named Stan, to the adivasi world. He shared Father Swamy’s hut in a Ho village in Jharkhand. My husband always told young activists:

“Gandhiji’s non violence was not merely moral or religious. It was strategic. Gandhi was a brilliant general. Oxymoronic though that sounds. He understood that the fight for freedom could not be won by violence because mere ordinary Indians, even if they poured out on the streets with justice on their side, with God on their side, could never win. Even if there were thousands or lakhs of people marching in protest, they could never match the might of the state. Before 1947, the British could bring out the artillery and finish us off. One wrong step could have changed the course of our history. But the entire world watched India’s non violent battle for independence, open mouthed. Non violence was a new word, a new tactic, made in India. The world sympathised and empathised. Gandhi’s strategic non violence was the most brilliant weapon in our war for Independence’.

The same scenario is playing out today. And the average activist understands that putting ordinary villagers, adivasis, Dalits or women in the line of fire is counterproductive and unfair. We learnt this strategy from Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan.

In recent times, it has become the norm to equate the word activist with ‘anti-national’. But who is an activist? What do they do?

It’s quite simple. All over India, there are thousands of people who took up the cause of fighting for social justice for the poor, the marginalised and the voiceless. These people were inspired by the brightest and best minds in our country – from Gandhiji to Vinobha Bhave to JP.

Post Independence, when the battle for freedom was won, Gandhi urged his followers to go out and continue the fight for freedom. This time, it was to free the poorest from hunger and poverty, to teach and educate, to weave and spin, to spread harmony and peace. Thousands rallied to his call and Gandhi ashrams were filled with people determined to continue the freedom struggle on a new battlefield – India’s villages.

The sixties saw the rise of the Dalit movement. New leaders emerged. Gandhi raised the question of untouchability in the early days of the Independence movement, but his ‘Harijan’ epithet was subsequently dismissed  by Dalits as patronising. Dalit power became a clarion call, drawing inspiration from the African-American Black Panther movement. Dr B.R. Ambedkar showed the way.

The term activist gained popularity during the JP movement and during the fight against the Emergency in the mid seventies. After the Emergency, thousands of young patriots, drawing their inspiration from JPs charisma, accepted his challenge to go out and organise the poor, the under privileged and the vulnerable; to fight for their rights. This period saw a proliferation of human rights defenders, though the term was not used till later.

Women and men dedicated their lives to fighting for Dalit rights, adivasi rights, womens’ rights, farmers’ unions and fisherfolk movements. These activists evolved in their understanding of rights based movements. They often lived with the communities they worked with. They identified with the people and though many were middle class, they tried to live simpler lives than their parents, than the backgrounds and privileged upbringing they had been born into. They were pleased to be branded activists and wore the badge with pride.

From the fifties and sixties, when Gandhians prevailed, we moved into the seventies where a sea change took place. Global thinking wafted across the world to India. The 1968 student movement in France, Latin American thinking, Marxist ideology – all these gained ground and influenced grass roots workers. The focus changed from the passive Gandhian way – the giving of food, clothes, free education and medicine to changing unjust situations at the base. ’Daan’ or mere giving was now passe.  Activists were trained to encourage people to ask who was cheating them and why? So if people were encroaching on adivasi or Dalit land, it was time to establish basic human rights; time to equip people to defend themselves, to fight injustice – non-violently, the Gandhian way, and the strategic way.

Soon, womens’ groups began to take action against dowry deaths and acid attacks, and took to the streets and courts to protest and demand justice. Dalit groups found lawyers willing to fight caste atrocity cases in court. Adivasis had activists urging them to defend their ancestral millennia old homelands from dominant caste landlords who shamelessly cheated them and usurped their lands. Environmentalists and eco-warriors hugged trees and stopped forests from being denuded. A huge green movement began. The protest movements grew from strength to strength.

In reality, these people are defending human rights and saving the Earth for future generations. When it comes to central India and defending tribal land from powerful mining companies, the battle assumes David versus Goliath proportions.

Stan Swamy and the adivasis he supports in an impossible battle for their own ancestral lands are tiny pawns pitted against mammoth mining companies. Falsely branding activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn them and to enable vested interests to finish them off.

The frail 83-year-old has trumped up charges levelled against him. Yet he has a core of steel, an indomitable strength that comes with moral conviction and a commitment to truth and to the powerless. As they took him to prison, Stan Swamy announced he would begin a fast. His fellow Jesuits who rushed to the prison with his medicines, say he has refused even a sip of water.

I kept asking why, they would arrest this gentle, kind man. Father Cedric Prakash, who is also a Jesuit and activist, said in a TV interview, “It’s to create a fear psychosis. If they can imprison an 83-year-old who has spent his life committed to the poor, who is safe?”

Asianet phoned to interview my husband Stan. People cautioned him, “You will draw attention to yourself. It can boomerang and have repercussions on your work in the Nilgiris.”

Our arrival here in 1986 started with protecting adivasi land from bullies and encroachers. Friends – good people – joined to provide health and education. If this invites the wrath of the powers that be, like Stan Swamy, we can only say, “So be it.”

Mari Marcel Thekaekara is an independent writer, who has focused on social issues in magazines and newspapers which include the Hindu, Statesman, Times of India, Indian Express, Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly, Outlook magazine, Hindustan Times, Seminar, Infochange (an online resource base that provides news on crucial issues of sustainable development and social justice in India and South Asia), and the New Internationalist and Guardian in the UK.